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BIG PHYSICS, BIG QUESTIONS –

Environment chief says US should exit Paris climate agreement

Scott Pruitt, head of the US Environmental Protection Agency

Justin Merriman/Getty

By Chelsea Whyte

Scott Pruitt, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, has said that the US should back out of its commitment to the Paris climate agreement, the landmark plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions in a bid to limit global warming to below 2˚C.

This follows President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to cancel the agreement, with a decision on whether he will do so expected within the next month.

“It’s a bad deal for America,” Pruitt told cable news show Fox & Friends last week. “China and India had no obligations under the agreement until 2030.”

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But not everyone agrees with what he said.

“That statement is either deliberately misleading or woefully uninformed about what the Paris agreement is and what it does,” says Alden Meyer at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

China and India have already taken action to reach the goals they set for 2030, and China has committed to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by a higher percentage than US commitments. “Pruitt is really off the mark here,” Meyer says. “It’s very clear that China is going to overachieve its Paris objectives.”

Han Chen of the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York says that China implemented its first mandatory national cap on coal consumption last year and added three times as much wind capacity as the US in 2016.

“China already suspended over 100 planned or under-construction coal projects last year,” says Chen. “Meanwhile, the Trump administration wants policies that favor highly polluting fossil fuels. It’s no question which country is more ambitious on climate action at the moment.”

President Trump said on his campaign trail that he would “cancel” the Paris climate agreement.

Pushback

But his opposition to the agreement has received pushback from industry, as well as state and local government leaders. Oil and gas company Exxon Mobil wrote a letter in March urging the White House to stick to the agreement. And last November, Michael Bloomberg, the ex-mayor of New York City, called on a collective of US mayors to join the Paris accord if the Trump administration withdraws.

A survey conducted after November’s election by Yale University and George Mason University found that most US voters say the country should participate in the international agreement, including 86 per cent of Democrats, 61 per cent of Independents, and 51 per cent of Republicans.

“It’s possible the US can meet the Paris goals with or without the federal government,” says Meyer, through action by states and businesses. Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, has, for example, committed to eliminating a gigaton of greenhouse gas emissions from its operations and supply chains by 2030.

Pruitt’s support for leaving the Paris agreement may be related to him championing the repeal of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, Meyer says. “The US staying in the Paris agreement would add an arrow to the quiver of why you have to have some alternative emission strategy if you dismantle the Clean Power Plan. He’d have to replace the Clean Power Plan, not just repeal it, to meet the Paris standards,” he says.

The White House has stated that a decision about whether to leave the Paris agreement will be made before the next G7 summit in May.